Skip to main content

Tracks In The Snow

    Hey, everyone. It was 5 degrees this morning and there was about 6 inches of snow on the ground. The wind has died down since yesterday. Our water is still frozen and I've decided to go to Lowe's and buy a heater to put under the house and thaw the pipes. I hope they don't burst. By the way, the pipes burst because the water shrinks as it gets colder, allowing more water in. Then, as it heats up you need to have a couple of faucets open to allow for the expansion. If you don't, the expanding water has no place to go.
    We took a bit of time off from the weather related chores to hike through the woods and look at tracks. Snow makes an amateur tracker into a good one, if you catch my drift. It's really fun when you can plainly see what is going on. We found a myriad of rabbit tracks and squirrel tracks. There was an abundance of deer tracks, both male and female. The doe has more of a triangular track while the buck leaves two parallel  marks side by side with a space between them. We found the tracks, like an open book, where a full-grown mountain lion jumped from an oak tree at a deer. I saw where the ground was tore up as the deer's hooves slipped in his haste to get away. There was no blood or fur and the buck got safely away after what was, I'm sure, a terrifying experience. On a steep section of trail we found what appeared to be a black bear track that went through a laurel thicket. What I don't understand is why the rascal is not hibernating. Just my luck to have a bear with insomnia hanging about. I plan on looking in my tracker's book and looking up the habits of the black bear. Finally, we found an abundance of turkey tracks. It's rare for us to see turkeys up here. Today the snow made it possible to see where the huge birds even walked down the length of a fallen tree leaving tracks in the deep snow. I saw where one had dug through the snow and dead leaves and flushed a small animal that was living in a hole. How did he know it was there?
    It's amazing how little I discern of the world I pass through until it snows, then the book is opened and you read until your fingers are numb and you plod home to the fireplace and some hot chocolate; here at the green white retreat.
CE Wills

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Shadowgun: Crushing The Driller On Level 4

      Hey, everyone. Let's talk about the game called Shadowgun, the I-Pad game with which I have a love-hate relationship. Most of you who made it past the evil Cyber Lobster are doubtless locked in a death struggle with the Driller at the end of level 4. At this point you have been in the cave for a long time. The Driller breaks through the rock wall and chases you through the tunnel as you try to shoot out the green lights which slows the Driller down. If you are slick enough to shoot out all the lights and emerge from the cave, a rolling door crashes on the Driller and crushes his aggravating carcass. I have tried and failed to beat the Driller at least 250 times. I hate the Driller to the heights and depths my soul can reach. I hate it like a plague. I hate it with intensity of feeling. I hate it like a rich man hates taxes. Excuse me, I got carried away.       We had a big dinner here at the green retreat and my friend Trevor was ...

Faerie In a Glass Jar

    Hey, everyone. Sometimes gaming can be high-pressure. Take tonight, for instance. I was playing the excellent puzzle game titled 4 Elements #2. I have already done a review of it so I won't attempt to do so again. You have to match symbols and use 'power-ups' to get molten lava to flow around a board and bring life back to a faerie world. Cool. That's what I do. I'm into it. There are also a variety of mini-puzzles such as hidden objects and even putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Hey, when I get in trouble I call Carley.     Anyway, tonight, Carley wasn't around when a crisis struck. I was confronted with a faerie in a glass jar. She was crying for help. She said that she was running out of air. Every minute or two she would rattle the jar. In order to free her, I had to find all these objects and use them. Like there were some missing books. Then there was the pieces of a torch. When I found them I could light all the candles. I found the pieces of ...

Book Review: Box

     Hey, everyone. I just finished the latest novel by John Locke. It is titled Box . It is the story of a world renowned surgeon named, coincidentally, Gideon Box. Dr. Box is brilliant in his chosen field of endeavor but less skilled in anything that involves social interaction. He can't get along with people and is so bad at relationships that his flings at 'romance' normally involve strippers, lap dances and on-line dating services.      After a grueling operation, Box goes on a bender that involves going to visit three women in rural Kentucky that he 'met' on line. I would like to say that these women run the gamut between harmless and dangerous but that would be a misrepresentation. They are all dangerous. One of them has lied about all her particulars. Worse than that, she has pet seahorses and makes a particular powder that can be used as a weapon. The powder contains ground glass, among other things.      Without giving ...